Recent Read: Feed

"We went to the moon to have fun, but the moon turned out to completely suck," says Titus. But that's before he meets Violet, and it's before some weirdo infects their feeds with a virus that causes them to malfunction. A feed is a device implanted directly into the brain which then connects its owner to an internet-like network (like having a smartphone implanted in your brain). Both Titus and Violet end up in the hospital while their feeds are fixed. Titus learns that Violet is unlike any girl he's ever met: she's smart, she likes to trick and play with the feed, she doesn't like to follow trends, and she thinks for herself. Will Titus see through the feed, with Violet at his side?

M. T. Anderson's Feed was pretty excellent. It's a bit creepy how much more like the world of Feed society is today than when Anderson wrote this in 2002/3. I almost quit a couple of chapters in because the language was annoying the crap out of me. Of course, it's supposed to do that because it's partly a satire of the degeneration of language. Once I got a few chapters into Part 2, I was fine. And then I came to appreciate the humor of it. This is more than a commentary about commercialism, consumerism, language, etc (though it is definitely that, too). It's a story about people. It's a story about Titus and Violet. Titus is definitely a flawed protagonist, and that's why I loved his character. His behavior struck me as so authentically human--especially at the end. His and Violet's relationship is very real in both happy and sad ways. I felt like the book was chock-full of ideas and themes prime for analysis (there's so much more than the advertising internet-in-your-head part) without being didactic or condescending (unlike other books I've read). He tells a story, and lets it speak for itself. It seems like there are things happening somewhat peripherally (b/c that's how Titus would experience them) that aren't fully explained, but I don't think the story is about the technicalities of the world-building so it didn't matter to me. This book is funny, dark, frustrating, heart-breaking, interesting, and illuminating.